Experiments Check In

A few of you wrote to me to ask about how my year of experiments is going.

To refresh everyone, for 2021, I changed personal websites, started blogging daily again, changed book publishing models, moved to a new newsletter host, and tried to fix an old guitar with my son for fun.

It’s been a month or so. How’s it going?

The Good

• Subscribers are up.
• Site visits are up.
• I re-established some old relationships.
• I made some new friends.
• My hosting fees went way down.
• Updates to projects are being applied much faster.
• Daily posting hasn’t been an issue.
• I received two new podcast guest invites (accepted, but not scheduled). I’m looking to jump back in to podcasting this year in a big way.
• Getting back into playing the guitar and restoring one with my son was a joy.

The Bad

• My processes are all messed up due to the moves, and the newsletter suffers most as a result.
• Design is far from where I want it to be.
• We mangled the old guitar.
• The newsletter is not as readable, due to the new host, and I really want to move to Buttondown before the next issue. After all, this is an experiment, and the newsletter needs to be nimble. This is the first time I’ve ever had complaints about the readability of an email. That’s just not acceptable.

The Inconclusive

• Book sales have not changed. However, I really haven’t hyped my new strategy yet.
• New products are in flux. I have a few “guides” in the hopper that could be finished in a weekend or two. But, this pandemic has made my schedule…not my own. I’m dealing with madness at work and home, and a sick parent. Family, obviously, comes first. That means new products can’t be created as quickly as hoped.
• Follows are flat on social, but I haven’t started going after that yet. I have a plan. That’s coming, but the newsletter must come first.

Onward!